Not Shelves, Not Cabinets: The Quick And Easy Way To Organize Shoes

Organizing shoes is something that everyone has to think about — particularly in family homes or ones where multiple people are living. While options like cabinets and shelving are popular in many cases, sometimes these solutions are not viable. Cabinets can require a lot of space to accommodate and be pricey to acquire. Similarly, shelving might mean drilling hardware into walls, which can be involved and undesirable, while standing shelving units need floor space. Plus, when you choose one of these options, your dirty shoes are still on display. For an easy way to neatly organize the shoes in your home, utilizing buckets can prove a quick-to-implement solution that is highly effective and keeps your shoes tucked away.

Buckets are a great way to organize shoes because they provide a physical space with real parameters for something that can easily get out of control. By organizing with buckets, you also protect the floors of your space from dirt and debris that can fall through slats on shelves. Shoe buckets have the intrinsic benefit of being easy to move out of the way; when you need to keep shoes organized and out of sight (like when it's time to mop the floor or when company is coming), simply pick up the buckets and move them to the garage or a nearby closet to eliminate the visual clutter. To make this approach as affordable as possible, you can pick up some cheap plastic buckets from your local Dollar Tree, like this Plastic Bucket with Handle ($1.50)

Since this smart way to store shoes without shelves is so straightforward, it's easy to optimize and personalize for your particular needs. If there are multiple individuals in your home, it's smart to provide each person with their own shoe bucket. This will eliminate shoes getting mixed up and make it easier to get out of the door on busy mornings. You can personalize the buckets further by choosing different colored buckets for each person — this is particularly useful in homes with young children since they can easily identify which bucket is theirs. If multiple colored baskets are too visually chaotic for you, however, keep the buckets all the same color and use labels to denote which bucket belongs to which person. Don't have a label maker? Here's a genius way to make chic labels at home with simple materials.

You'll ultimately have to decide which buckets are best for your home — square or rectangular buckets might be able to more comfortably hold pairs of shoes, for example — but beyond the shape it's also prudent to think about other stylistic features. While cutouts on a bucket can be cute, the holes can mean that dirt will fall through. Placing a rug underneath this type of bucket can, however, mitigate debris getting tracked through the house. In order to maintain your shoe buckets in good condition, be sure to clean them from time to time. Just vacuum out or shake the dirt out into a trash can, then rinse them with water, and dry them fully before returning the shoes.